imagine what it will do to humans
Study shows glyphosate impairs learning in bumblebees
51–60 of 68 posts
Re: Study shows glyphosate impairs learning in bumblebees
#52Earlier quoted context omitted.
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US bulk agriculture exports are what keep vast swathes of the developing world from starving. GMOs, herbicides and pesticides are how the US produces immense quantities of cheap food for the rest of the world [1]. I don't really care what the rest of the world whines about, when the US is the country actually keeping millions of the global poor alive. [1] https://www.ers.usda.gov/topics/international-markets-u-s-tr..…
US bulk agriculture exports are what keep vast swathes of the developing world from sustaining themselves. Wheat, corn and other heavily subsidized crops are how countries are incentivized producing cash crops like coffee, tea and Kat instead of food.
I don't really understand why the rest of the world doesn't whine, when the US is the country actually keeping millions of the global population poor.
Re: Study shows glyphosate impairs learning in bumblebees
#53I don't know why it is taking so long to distribute the facts... In Argentina, one of the top agricultural exporters in the last decades cancer increased a lot in farms using glyphosate. A recent review here [1] [1] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S221339842...
Because glyphosate is not that bad compared to other agrichemicals like pesticides, fungicides and weed killers containing Chrlorine (MCPA). When used with a surfactant these chemicals penetrate insects by orders of magnitude.
The paper you linked to is about pesticide is it not?
It's far more likely the bees are getting covered in chemicals when said chemicals are applied to the flowers of the plants which is often the case with fungicides. You're not going to spray glyphosate on your orchard trees because it would kill them. The fungicide powder used to coat seeds are is also a problem as it's dusty and gets airborne easily. Glyphosate might be a bit of a scapegoat when the other chemicals are far worse.
Re: Study shows glyphosate impairs learning in bumblebees
#54There are applications where glyphosate is perfectly appropriate. The issues with it arise when A) farmers use it as a crop dissicant in large quantities to make their crops cheaper to harvest, outside the spec of the product and B) when it's used in unsuitable soil, temperature, and humidity conditions. In the right conditions it has a half life of a few days and will be completely inert in a couple of weeks. This i…
> In the right conditions it has a half life of a few days and will be completely inert in a couple of weeks.
As far as I can tell this is not accurate- glyphosate breaks down to AMPA which is not inert.
Re: Study shows glyphosate impairs learning in bumblebees
#55Earlier quoted context omitted.
>> An average of almost 130 pounds of glyphosate herbicides were sprayed per square mile in U.S. counties. Is this the weight of pure glyphosate, or it includes the solvents like water? Wikipedia says that the density of glyphosate is 1.7 but they have no units. Let's assume it's g/cm^3 (the density of water is 1g/cm^3, so it's a good guess.) From https://www.wolframalpha.com/input?i=130pounds+%2F+%281.7g%2... this i…
Only 17% of the US landmass is used for agriculture, so averaging it out like this doesn’t make much sense.
https://www.wolframalpha.com/input?i=130pounds+%2F+%281.7g%2... 0.00008mm ~= 0.000003 inches
Re: Study shows glyphosate impairs learning in bumblebees
#56Glyphosate affects the human microbiome and its effects are not understood well enough. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9145961/
Re: Study shows glyphosate impairs learning in bumblebees
#57Earlier quoted context omitted.
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It's easy in America. As soon as your industry becomes big enough you can afford to petition (lobby) the government to write regulations that favor your busines in your industry. Fortunately any American can petition their government. Collectively we could hire our own lobbyist to write better laws (and regulations).
The Drilled podcast covers in detail the history of how corporations in America engineered their right to use their money and influence for political speech.
Re: Study shows glyphosate impairs learning in bumblebees
#58It's also a neurotoxin in humans: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9101768/
Almost everything is neurotoxic depending on the dose. Sodium Chloride(Table Salt) will reek havoc on your brain and nervous systems if the concentration gets to high. Why you get muscle cramps and dizzy when dehydrated. Luckily the study addresses this and says that you have heavily dose rats to get a neurotoxic effect but humans will never see this dose under environmental exposure. > Most of studies of rodents ana…
Water is also neurotoxic in large quantities:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_intoxication
Re: Study shows glyphosate impairs learning in bumblebees
#59I like when studies show institutional knowledge. Any beekeeper can tell you that RoundUp messes with their hives, this confirms it.
I had bees move into a window in my basement years ago, eventually that hive died but a beekeeper set up hives near our creek. A beehive has more departures and arrivals than any airport and the complexity of their behavior is staggering. Any poison that made bees just a little bit stupid could have a major impact on the effectiveness of a hive — and if you take responsibility for bees there is a huge list of problem…
Amazing book I am almost finishing up -
Honeybee Democracy - How honeybees make collective decisions―and what we can learn from this amazing democratic process
https://www.amazon.com/Honeybee-Democracy-Thomas-D-Seeley/dp...
From what I read, I can only imagine the traffic!
Re: Study shows glyphosate impairs learning in bumblebees
#60Earlier quoted context omitted.
Only 17% of the US landmass is used for agriculture, so averaging it out like this doesn’t make much sense.
https://www.wolframalpha.com/input?i=130pounds+%2F+%281.7g%2... 0.00008mm ~= 0.000003 inches
In the linked article it actually shows max concentrations at 500. So for those areas it (basically) really is your original number.
It's further telling with this quote:
> Iowa and Illinois, where the most corn and soy crops are grown, accounted for 15% of national usage
Which means some states heavy skew the results and many, many areas of the country are below 100 or near 0.